1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed: Revised and Updated by Eric H. ClineMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Their world was connected through trade, diplomacy, and cultural cross-pollination but within a lifetime everything changed. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed sees Eric H. Cline unveil the prosperous Late Bronze Age of the Aegean, Eastern Mediterranean, the Fertile Crescent, and Egypt and theorizes about how they disappeared from history or were weakened apparently out of nowhere.
Using a variety of disciplines, from archaeology to linguistics, Cline shows the reader the world of the Late Bronze Age and the cultures that dominated it and their relationships with one another in an ever-increasing interconnectedness. Yet as Cline goes on to show this interconnectedness was also it’s down fall as natural disasters, climate change, internal and external migration, and numerous other factors that could have been weathered individually created a “perfect storm” of events that caused the international system to collapse. Cline doesn’t shy away from engaging in the long-held belief that the “Sea Peoples” were responsible for the collapse but shows how those migrates were reacting to the world falling apart and either taking advantage or running away to find stability. Throughout 187 pages, Cline packs in a lot of facts and speculations besides the confirmed history on events that could point to the truth of Troy and maybe the Exodus, though his speculation on the latter is weaker than the former.
1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed is a very fact dense book that is aimed for a general audience, but inquisitive and ready to get into nitty gritty of knowledge. Eric H. Cline knows his subject and is able to communicate it fairly well on page, but not as well as he comes across in lectures or presentations.
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